 America Reawakening
Something is reawakening inside America. People
whose stigmatized condition left them alone or
cloistered in subterranean subcultures are stepping
into the light to tell the stories of their wounds
and their redemption. They are offering their
time, talents, and testimonies to address alcohol
and other drug-related problems in their local
communities and in the country as a whole. They
exemplify a transition from self-healing to social
activism that could aptly be described as a style
of radical recovery.
For the past five years I have had the opportunity
to observe and collaborate with these recovery
activists from across the country. The purpose
of this brief essay is to honor the spirit of
these activists by describing their unique style
of recovery. The coupling of the two words—radical and recovery—seems incongruous. While
addiction connotes excess, recovery is rooted
in the cultivation of balance and harmony.
To do anything to an extreme would seem more
a symptom of addiction than a dimension of
recovery. But some aspects of the recovery
process capitalize on this propensity for excess.
The first edition of the book Alcoholics
Anonymous speaks of the need for extreme measures to
recover from alcoholism (“half measures
availed us nothing”; AA, 1939); Women
for Sobriety extols the importance of the “big
decision” (Kirkpatrick, 1986); and Secular
Organizations for Sobriety emphasizes the “sobriety
priority”—a decision to never drink
no matter what (Christopher, 1992). Many spiritual,
religious, and secular recovery traditions
share a radical commitment to sobriety and
a radical reconstruction of personal identity
and lifestyle. Recovery in these traditions
is so extreme in its effects that it has come
to be defined as far more than the removal
of alcohol and other drugs from an otherwise
unchanged life. The discovery that people seeking
recovery could achieve together what had been
unobtainable alone was itself a radical innovation.
Put simply, personal recovery is often radical
in its methods and outcomes. This essay explores
a different kind of radicalness—a radicalness
directed not at the healing of the self, but
at the healing of the world.
The development and resolution
of alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems
are usually understood on an individual level.
Recovery narratives depict the evolution
of the addiction experience, the transforming
journey from addiction to recovery, and one’s evolving life in
recovery in highly personal terms. There are,
however, larger contexts within which these
personal addiction and recovery narratives
can be understood. The sources and solutions
to AOD problems are nested within particular
historical, economic, political, and cultural
contexts. In the aggregate, addiction transcends
personal tragedy to stand as a symptom of system
malfunction—a breakdown in the relationships
between individuals, families, and communities.
An understanding of the ecology of addiction
and recovery constitutes the very foundation
of radical recovery. Radical recovery is not
a projection of blame for one’s addiction,
nor an abdication of personal responsibility
for one’s own recovery. It is a sustained
meditation on the broader social meaning of
the experiences of addiction and recovery.
What is Radical Recovery?
Radical recovery is
the use of one’s recovery from addiction as a platform
to advocate social change related to the sources of and solutions to community-wide
AOD problems. The phrase radical recovery is not this author’s invention.
The call for a radicalized style of recovery emerged as a reaction to the highly
commercialized New Age recovery movement of the 1980s (Rapping, 1993; Morell,
1996), but its roots go much deeper. Radical recovery traditions span the prophetic
leaders of eighteenth and nineteenth century Native American healing and cultural
revitalization movements (Coyhis and White, 2002, 2003; Brave Heart, 2003),
the “reformed reformers” of the American temperance movement (White,
1998), African American activists portraying drugs as a weapon of colonization
(Tabor, 1970), and feminist charges that the concept of “codependency” mislabels
the cultural oppression of women as a problem of personal pathology (Tarvis,
1992; Kasl, 1992; also see Helmer, 1975, and Morgan, 1983). Today, radical
recovery is exemplified in the lives of the men and women who are at the forefront
of the New Recovery Advocacy Movement. This movement is reflected in new grassroots
recovery-advocacy organizations whose collective goals are to
• portray alcoholism
and addictions as problems for which
there are viable and varied recovery solutions
• provide living role-models that illustrate
the diversity of those recovery solutions
• counter public attempts to dehumanize,
objectify, and demonize those with AOD problems
• enhance the variety, availability, and
quality of local/regional treatment and recovery
support services
• remove environmental barriers to recovery,
including the promotion of laws and social
policies that reduce AOD problems and support recovery
for those afflicted with AOD problems (White,
2000).
Radical
recovery is the discovery that changing oneself
and changing the world are synergistic. It
is choosing to become the dropped pebble that
generates enduring and far-reaching ripples
through one’s family, community, and
world. It is joining with kindred spirits
to form communities of recovery that wish
to amplify the influence of those ripples.
Put simply, radical recovery is about people
in recovery defining themselves as a community;
moving beyond self-healing toward social
action on issues related to their shared
experience; reflecting on the needs of
people still suffering from addiction;
and forging goals and strategies to widen
the doorways of entry into recovery and
to enhance the quality of the recovery
experience. Radical recovery is making
amends and expressing gratitude through
the vehicle of social action. It is mobilizing
communities of recovery to build relationships
of influence with other community institutions.
It is a vision to reshape the ecology of
addiction and recovery in America.
Where
possible, radical recovery is family oriented—it is an extension of family
healing. It recognizes the far-reaching effects
of addiction on the family and conveys the
good news that recovery is also far-reaching
in its effects. Radical recovery is turning
the healing power of recovery within families
outward as an act of service to the world.
Family members, “friends of recovery,” and
visionary professionals are joining with those
who no longer suffer severe AOD problems to
make important contributions to this emerging
social-change movement.
Radical
recovery is visible and vocal (in offering oneself as living
proof of the reality of recovery). Such visibility
is not about narcissism or exhibitionism
(an assertion of ego). Radical recovery is
not a superior style of recovery; it is one
of many styles of recovery—a
style open to those temperamentally suited
for it and whose life circumstances allow such
visibility without stigma-related injury to
self or others. It is not an impulsive or reckless
disclosure of one’s addiction/recovery
story. It is a context-appropriate report of
one’s status as a person who has achieved,
or is working to achieve, sustained recovery
from addiction. It is strategically using one’s
personal/family/neighborhood story to inform
a broader policy debate. It is the willingness
to add one’s own face and voice to other
visible faces and voices of recovery.
Radical recovery recognizes that visibility
and voice come at a price within a society
that continues to stigmatize those linked to
AOD problems. It seeks only a vanguard of recovered
and recovering people whose personal circumstances
allow them to stand as living proof of the
proposition that recovery is a reality for
millions of people around the world. It is
the use of the personal testimonies of that
vanguard to convey hope to individuals, families,
and communities. It is the recognition that
recovery is a gift bringing duties and obligations
that transcend the self. But radical recovery,
like most styles of recovery, is filled with
paradoxes. Speaking out is as much about asking
questions (provoking critical reflection) as
it is about making statements. Speaking out
has power only after silencing the self through
acts of self-reflection and listening. Standing
as a witness has power only when standing is
an act of service, not when standing is self-congratulation.
Radical recovery is not an invitation to
violate the anonymity traditions of Alcoholics
Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and other twelve-step
fellowships. It is an invitation for some individuals
and family members in twelve-step recovery
and those from other pathways of recovery to
talk publicly about their recovery status without
reference to the means by which that recovery
was achieved, e.g., without specific references
to AA/NA affiliation at the level of press.
It is an invitation for people to become a
messenger of recovery apart from their particular
identities as members of AA, NA, CA, WFS, WFS,
SOS, LSR, or other recovery societies.
More on Radical Recovery
Radical recovery is
focused. It extends the singularity
of purpose of recovery mutual-aid groups into
the arena of social action by remaining focused
on issues linked to addiction and recovery. Radical
recovery avoids diversions. In the current wave
of service integration initiatives, radical recovery
brings a singular voice of advocacy for the needs of those suffering from
addiction and the needs of those in recovery. Radical recovery stays “on
message.” Radical Recovery is solution focused. It is about more than
being a critic; it is about being a positive, creative force within local
communities and the larger culture. It does not talk about personal, family,
or community pathology without noting the presence of personal, family, and
community resilience. It is more concerned with the details of solutions
than the details of problems.
Radical
recovery brings a sense of urgency.
Its celebration of recovery is tempered by
its awareness that people continue to live
deformed lives, languish in physical and psychological
prisons, and needlessly die because they have
not yet found the entrance to recovery. At
the same time, radical recovery is patient
in its recognition that community change, like
personal change, requires time and sustained
effort. Radical recovery is bold, but its boldness
flows from integrity rather than recklessness.
It is grounded in stillness, reflection, questioning,
and listening.
Radical
recovery is confrontive (of the social conditions and institutional
interests within which AOD problems arise
and flourish). It confronts the social stigma
that shrouds addiction and inhibits recovery.
One of the more astute criticisms of the
modern recovery movement is that positing
the source of and solution to AOD problems
within the vulnerability and resilience of
the individual ignores environmental conditions
within which such problems flourish and strategies
through which they could be prevented or
resolved. While service work with individuals
still suffering from addiction has a long
tradition within American communities of
recovery, only rarely have recovered and
recovering people taken collective action
on broader political and social concerns.
There is, however, growing evidence that
people in recovery are involving themselves
in community service as part of their recovery
process (Kurtz & Fisher,
2003). A new recovery-advocacy movement is
mobilizing communities of recovery into a force
for political advocacy on AOD-related issues
(White, 2000). Radical recovery is stepping
forward to be part of this movement.
Radical
recovery is political (in recognizing
that social change involves the acquisition
and strategic use of power to shape addiction/recovery
promoting and inhibiting forces). It recognizes
that recovery itself can be a political act
as well as a means of personal healing and
redemption. It is a willingness to join together
for collective action on issues related to
addiction and recovery. It is self-identified
Democrats, Republicans, and independents joining
together for common cause within the proclamation
that AOD problems so threaten the health of
this country that their resolution must transcend
partisan politics.
Radical
recovery is sensitive to institutional interests. Radical recovery
is a sustained reflection on the sociopolitical
and economic influences that influence AOD
problems and policies. Radical recovery recognizes
the existence of predatory industries that
promote and profit from addictive products
(see the work of Dr. Jean Kilbourne). When
those with AOD problems are sequestered in
ever-increasing numbers in jails and prisons,
radical recovery asks: what individuals and
institutions profit from such circumstances?
It openly confronts the ways in which public
health can be sacrificed for corporate gain.
Radical recovery is the recognition that
young men and women of color and disenfranchised
whites have become the raw materials that
feed the institutional (prison) economies
of many communities. Radical recovery is
willing to confront treatment professionals
and treatment institutions that view people
with AOD problems as a crop to be harvested
for personal and institutional profit. Radical
recovery is willing to expose hustlers masked
as healers. Generations of volunteers within
the local affiliates of the National Council
on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence laid the
policy and legislative foundations for the
modern system of addiction treatment. Today’s
advocates are lobbying to protect that infrastructure,
but they are also calling upon today’s
treatment organizations to become more accountable
to the needs of the individuals, families,
and communities they serve. Radical
recovery respects the importance of professional
resources but emphasizes the recovery-initiating
and recovery-sustaining power of relationships
that are natural (as opposed to professionalized),
reciprocal (as opposed to hierarchical), and
enduring (as opposed to transient). Radical
recovery is not about lobbying for an infinite
number of ever-expanding addiction treatment
centers. It is about nurturing the development
of indigenous recovery-support resources that
diminish the need for professionally directed
treatment.
Radical
recovery is inclusive (in its tolerance and celebration of the
multiple pathways and innumerable varieties
of recovery experience) and respectful (of
the traditions and folkways of various communities
of recovery). Radical recovery frees one
from the need to have the single recovery
answer and allows one to celebrate the diverse
pathways that foster escape from the addiction
quagmire. It allows one to respond to such
differences not out of defensive criticalness
but out of true joy for another’s freedom.
Radical recovery makes no claim other than
one’s own experience and is not threatened
by experiences that are different. It affirms
choice in recovery and celebrates the diversity
of those choices. Stated simply, its motto
is “recovery by any means necessary.” Radical
recovery also recognizes that shared pain and
redemption are the foundation of communities
of recovery and that such kinship of suffering
and rebirth transcends the boundaries of gender,
race, social class, developmental age, sexual
orientation, religious beliefs, and political
affiliation. It seeks to extend the influence
of those relational communities outward into
the world.
Radical
recovery promotes metaphors of personal and
community liberation for historically disempowered
peoples. There
are powerful metaphors that convey the sources
and solutions to AOD problems in ways that
catalyze personal and community action. Radical
recovery elicits such metaphors from the
collective stories of those suffering from
addiction within particular community, historical,
and cultural contexts and respects the right
of communities to generate their own catalytic
metaphors. Radical recovery respects the
power of such metaphors as “disease,” “surrender,” and “acceptance” in
one cultural context and the power of “genocide,” “liberation,” and “resurrection” in
others. Radical recovery is about using the
raw materials of addiction and healing to rebuild
and revitalize families, neighborhoods, and
communities. It is about recognizing the healing
power of a community of shared experience embraced
by larger communities of hope and encouragement.
Radical
recovery is collaborative. It embraces
coalitions of people with shared interests
and aspirations involved in kindred causes.
The movement within which radical recovery
is embraced is interracial and interfaith and
brings together people from diverse social
classes and personal and professional backgrounds
who otherwise share little in common.
Pitfalls of Radical Recovery
A radical style of recovery is not without its pitfalls. History bears witness
to a number of important lessons related to personal recovery and participation
in social change.
Radical
recovery is a philosophy of social action;
it is not a program of personal recovery.
The history of recovery is strewn with the
bodies of those who thought that they could
get and stay sober by trying to change the
world. Radical recovery is not a means of achieving
or sustaining personal recovery: it is one
possible fruit of such recovery. Participation
in social change must not obscure the primacy
of personal recovery as a foundation for larger
service to the community. It must not become
a diversion from those daily activities that
sustain and enrich personal recovery.
Collective
efforts at social change are best conducted
in affiliation with organizations whose mission
is social change rather than through organizations
whose primary purpose is mutual support for
addiction recovery. Many
mutual-aid organizations have lost touch with
their primary mission when they have become
involved in outside political and religious
issues. Such involvements led to the demise
of many pre-AA recovery mutual-aid societies
and contributed to the emergence of the Twelve
Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. The integrity
of the firewall between mutual-aid and advocacy
organizations and their respective activities
must be protected.
Radical
recovery, in its focus on social systems
and social policies, could divert attention
away from the suffering of individuals and
families. Care will need to be taken that advocacy
for social policies and programs does not weaken
the face-to-face service to those still suffering
from addiction. In focusing on all manner of
contextual issues, it is easy to be seduced
into forgetting the power of the drug. It is
the drug that people become addicted to, and
personal recovery can begin only at that starting
point and then work back through the etiological
influences on the person-drug relationship.
Treatment and mutual-aid groups are designed
to aid that process at a personal level. Advocacy
organizations are designed to address the contexts
in which addiction and recovery flourish. Neither
is a replacement for the other.
Radical
recovery could, in the name of serving communities
of recovery, inadvertently lead to schisms
within and between those communities.
Organized recovery advocacy will raise potentially
contentious questions: Who legitimately represents
the needs and aspirations of people in recovery?
How can diverse communities and individuals
reach consensus on goals and strategies? How
will disagreements be resolved or managed?
What fractures could social action engender
in personal and organizational relationships
within communities of recovery? Conflict within
the social-action arena could injure relationships
and affiliations within the recovery mutual-aid
arena and further polarize the recovery community
into ideological camps.
Social-change
movements breed excesses and ignite countermovements
that, in turn, undermine the successes that
have been achieved. For
example, the industrialization and commercialization
of addiction treatment in the 1980s led to
a financial and ideological backlash that dramatically
altered the image and availability of addiction
treatment in the United States and increased
therapeutic pessimism about the prospects of
long-term recovery. Great care must be taken
in the selection of the core ideas and methods
that flow from this style of radical recovery.
Social-change
movements go through predictable stages and
are prone to burn themselves out. For some, radical
recovery will mark a brief period of intense,
time-limited activity in their lives. For
others, radical recovery will be a life-enduring
marathon; it will come to be understood as
part of the central meaning of one’s
life. Successful social movements need both
styles of involvement.
Recovery Rising
A radical recovery movement is now rising in America. That movement is flowing
from the realization that addiction and its progeny of problems are visible
everywhere, while recovery from addiction lies hidden. It is rising in the
recognition that the stigma attached to AOD problems has increased in recent
decades and has fueled the demedicalization and recriminalization of these
problems. What started out as “zero tolerance” for drugs rapidly
evolved into zero tolerance for people with AOD problems. It is in this regressive
climate that a style of recovery is emerging that is radical in its scope
(focus on environmental as well as personal transformation), radical in its
inclusiveness (celebration of multiple pathways and styles of recovery),
and radical in its synthesis of social responsibility and personal accountability.
People in recovery are looking beyond their own addiction and recovery experiences
to the broader social conditions within which AOD problems arise and are
sustained. A radicalized vanguard of people in recovery is using personal
transformation as a fulcrum for social change. They are living Gandhi’s
challenge to become the change they wish to see in the world. Those who were
once part of the problem are becoming part of the solution.
Prophetic voices are rising from communities
of recovery across America. Voices of the formerly
hopeless are becoming instruments of personal
healing and community renewal and redemption.
If you share this call to a larger platform
of service and believe that your personal/family
story can touch others, come join us. Become
part of this movement.
Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the
following individuals for their encouragement,
feedback, and suggestions on this paper: Ben
Bass, Alex Brumbaugh, Don Coyhis, Mark Sanders,
Bob Savage, Jason Schwartz, Richard Simonelli,
Pat Taylor, Phil Valentine and Pam Woll.
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| References
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About the Author: William
L. White is a Senior Research Consultant at
Chestnut Health Systems, past chair of the
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ill White gave a powerful
and popular talk about Native American resistance
to alcohol since first European contact in
North America at the September, 2003 White
Bison Wellbriety Conference in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. Wellbriety ’03
was supported in part by SAMHSA, The Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
Department of Health and Human Services, under
a grant by CSAT, The Center for Substance Abuse
Treatment. This year we are honored to
have Bill White and Don Coyhis present their
new book-in-progress on the same subject at the
April 21-24, 2005 Fifth Annual Wellbriety Conference
to be held in Denver, Colorado with the same
agency support. The title of their new
book is 
